


Time After Time

by tylerandburnham



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:56:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29644038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tylerandburnham/pseuds/tylerandburnham
Summary: Set after the end of Discovery Season 3. Michael tells Book about her relationship with Ash.
Relationships: Cleveland "Book" Booker/Michael Burnham, Michael Burnham/Ash Tyler | Voq
Kudos: 8





	Time After Time

Time After Time

“Sometimes, you picture me

I'm walking too far ahead

You're calling to me

I can't hear what you've said

Then you say, "Go slow."

I fall behind

The second hand unwinds

If you're lost, you can look and you will find me

Time after time

If you fall, I will catch you, I'll be waiting

Time after time

If you're lost, you can look and you will find me

Time after time

If you fall, I will catch you, I'll be waiting (I will be waiting)

Time after time

After my picture fades

And darkness has turned to gray

Watching through windows

You're wondering if I'm okay

Secrets stolen from deep inside

The drum beats out of time”

Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper

It had started off as a nice little routine mission from Admiral Vance for Discovery. It was a mission that Captain Burnham was able to easily pull in Book for his help. Mission completed and headed back to HQ, they were able to enjoy some precious alone time on Book’s ship docked in Discovery’s shuttlebay. Becoming captain had limited Michael’s free time even further. Book handed Michael a cup of hot tea as he took a seat beside her. He held his own cup of tea in his hands.

“So now that you have your tea you have to fill me in on the past loves of Michael Burnham! I’m sure you have some great stories!” Booker had spent the last hour regaling her with amusing stories about women he had loved in the past. Running into one of them on this mission had brought the subject up. Book had ended on good terms with Shay and they were like two old friends meeting back up again. Nothing that would cause Michael any jealousy. But Book had mistakenly assumed that since he was so good humored on the subject that Michael would feel the same way about sharing. She did not. 

Stamets had once told her that all good relationships are built on honesty. She said she was good at honesty, about speaking her mind. Michael worked hard to keep the past in the past. She tried to stay in the here and now and just move forward. She couldn’t change the past. It was dead as her loved ones that once filled it with such vibrancy. Was she protecting Book by not talking about Ash? Or was she protecting herself? She loved Book….

Taking a deep breath and a sip of the scalding tea that burned her throat, she said, “There was a man I loved named, Ash Tyler.”

Book’s smile, for the first time all day, faltered. What had he been thinking? Michael had come from the past and left all her loved ones that weren’t on Discovery behind. He suddenly realized this was no easy story for Michael to relate. “Go on.”

“When I first met him, our captain at the time, Lorca, had been captured by klingons. He and another POW, Lt. Ash Tyler, escaped. Tyler had been there for several months. He had been...tortured. He was on the only one of his crew that survived at the hands of the klingons.”

Book laid a hand gently on her arm for a moment and Michael gave him a small smile for the gesture. 

Continuing she said, “Lorca offered Tyler the position of chief of security on Discovery. It’s another long story, but leading up to that moment I had been blamed for being the cause of the war between the Federation and the klingons. Many of the Discovery crew members at the time distrusted me and didn’t want to have anything to do with me at all. Tilly was the first to eventually welcome me and we became good friends as you know. Eventually all the crew did. But Tyler, from the first time I met him in the mess hall, he never judged me by my past.” My past. Michael could feel her mind and body slipping back into the past. She felt uneasy and also powerless to stop all the feelings she had kept so bottled up over the past two years. When you are trying to survive and find focus in a strange new place you don’t have the luxury of thinking about the past.

_ “I’m just sorry we missed our first kiss.”  _

Book could see the focus changing in Michael’s eyes and decided it was maybe best to move onto other, less painful subjects. “We can talk about something else.” Book tried to latch his mind onto another topic but sadness sometimes just attraches other sadness and the only subject he could think of was to ask if Stamets had stopped acting so coldly toward her. And he didn’t want to ask that.

“No, it’s fine,” said Michael trying to smile. “It’s good to talk about things, right?”

_ “An iski for your thoughts?” _

“We became...close. I admired Tyler for how he, after all he had suffered, was still such a good person. He would have had every right to be consumed by bitterness but he wasn’t. Everyone liked him. He had such a zeal for life and a great sense of humor. He truly cared about those around him. He was the...first person I ever loved liked that..”

Inwardly, Book winced. He knew Michael didn’t fall in love easily and he could see how she didn’t want to hurt him. Out loud he smiled and said, “it’s okay, Michael.”

She smiled at him with a smile that almost reached her eyes. “But then I realized he had been putting on a facade that everything that happened to him just washed off. He was having trouble at times keeping focused and completing missions. He told me more about….his captivity. It was even worse than I had imagined.”

_ “I encouraged it. Her sick affections, her obsession with me, because if I hadn't, I'd be dead, like all the others. And I got out. I get to keep living my life. But the thing is... if none of that had happened, I wouldn't be here, on this ship, with you. And that almost makes it... worth it.”  _

“I wanted him to get help but...at the time we were a long way from home. He said he could handle it and I believed him. I loved and cared about him even more but I made him promise to tell me if it ever became too much for him. He deserved to live his life in peace after all he had suffered...” 

_ “You're my tether. You bring me back. You did it before we were stranded in this place, and you're still doing it now.” _

Michael subconsciously touched her neck. “We were on a mission together deep in enemy territory. He broke his promise to me. I understand now what he was thinking. He thought he could handle things and he was just so focused on protecting me. I finally realized that things were not okay. He snapped while we were on a mission. He had put our lives, the crew’s lives, and the mission all in danger. I was angry at his broken promise. I lashed out at him. He begged me not to be so angry. I didn’t understand what was happening. He had been holding everything together for me and then he lost control.”

_ “I tried to shut her out when L'Rell spoke the call. I resisted by thinking of you, the one I want to be human for. The one I love. I tried, Michael.” _

“Michael!” The next thing Michael knew Book had his arms around her in a loving embrace. She smiled up at him. But the smile still didn’t quite reach her eyes. “It’s not what you’re thinking. Well it is and it isn’t. It turned out that when he was a prisoner of the klingons they had altered Tyler into a sleeper klingon agent named Voq. His tortuer, L’Rell, had loved Voq who had died during this transformation. L’Rell had been trying to activate Voq inside Tyler. Tyler’s love...his love for me...kept him fighting to be human. I don’t think Tyler understood what was really happening to him, not really, until the end. In the end I released all my anger on him and he lost his fight for control. Voq took over. He was frightened by what was happening and thought he could control it.” She couldn’t say, And Voq tried to kill me with Ash Tyler’s face, eyes, hands, and body that I loved. He tried to kill me. 

Book gave her a tight embrace and a soft kiss on her cheek. Michael touched his arm in gratitude. 

“I was able to get Tyler back to Discovery. Saru said that at times Tyler was able to break through Voq’s control as tried to reassert himself. In moments when he was lucid he asked if I was okay and pleaded with Saru to help him. He had scratch marks all over his chest as if Tyler was literally trying to tear Voq out of him. Or maybe Voq was trying to get rid of Tyler. But it was too late, they had been melded together. Both of them were dying. Saru finally convinced L’Rell to perform a surgery that would kill Voq once and for all and to let Tyler reassert control over his mind and body.”

“I am so very sorry, Michael. Did Tyler survive the surgery?”

“Yes,” whispered Michael. “Tyler regained control of his mind and body but the new him had been melded with Voq forever. Tyler was in control of his life but he also could access Voq’s memories, and fluently speak the Klingon language.”

Michael glanced up at Book for a moment and he could see the tears in her eyes even as she quickly looked away. “I’m ashamed of how I treated him. I abandoned him when he needed me the most. Tyler apologized profusely for attacking me as Voq. And he was right, I couldn’t get over that a part of him was klingon now. Klingon’s had killed my biological father. At the time I thought they had killed my mother too. Things got complicated and I ran away. I was scared. I never considered what it must have been like for him, having this permanent bond with these people who had tortured him. All I could see was Voq’s eyes and not Tyler’s when I looked at him. I was happy he was doing better. I loved him and yet I walked away when he needed me the most. I broke his heart. Tilly tried to talk to me about him. She knew I still loved him and she told me that he couldn’t heal without the person he loved the most, meaning me, of course. I didn’t listen. I told him good-bye.” 

_ “I shouldn't be here. I should be an activated Klingon spy, behind bars or dead. Michael, the reason it didn't take, the reason L'Rell couldn't get through to me? That was you. Did Ash Tyler love you? Hell yes, he did. And I can't find my way back without you.” _

Continuing, Michael said, “Then Tyler and I had to work on a mission together to bring the war with the klingons to a close before we lost everything. We went down to Kronos. It was painful hearing him speak klingon and interact with the klingons like he was one of them. We had a chance to talk, and he was different but he was still the same Ash Tyler I fell in love with. During that mission I saw him. I saw only him when I looked into his eyes.” 

_ “I can see both sides. Literally. The side I've chosen is where you stand, where it's possible to feel compassion and sympathy for your enemy.” _

Book felt hot tears on his arms and hugged her tighter. 

_ “Michael. In spite of everything that happened to you, your capacity to love literally saved my life. I'm gonna miss looking at you.”  _

Quietly Michael said, “But it was too late. I was too late. Tyler had decided to follow L’Rell back to the klingon homeworld to help her unite the klingon people. He was adrift and had lost his way without me to tether him. He didn’t know who he was or where he belonged. He didn’t think he was good at being either a human or klingon but he thought he might be good for both as a torchbearer for peace between our two peoples.” 

“And after that you never saw him again?” asked Book,

Michael shook her head. “No. We kept in touch sporadically. Work related. There was so much I wanted to say to him but I didn’t know what to say, if that makes any sense. His absence was like a missing limb. Most of all I wanted to be a better friend to him since I had failed him so utterly when he had needed me the most.”

Continuing she said, “He left Kronos. I never got the full story. Only that he left and he could never go back. And here he was suddenly, without warning, sitting in Discovery’s mess hall. I was so shocked and yet happy to see him. It should have been so simple but then it turned out that he had joined Starfleet’s secret intelligence agency, Section 31. He was their liaison on Discovery while we worked on defeating Control. I didn’t trust Section 31 and I was angry at him all over again.”

Glancing at Book, Michael said, “I was wrong about everything then too. I should have trusted him from the very beginning. At every turn he was trying to do the right thing. He was always trying to protect me. He always trusted me and I failed to do the same. I didn’t realize his focus on duty was never above his duty to me.”

“Was there a time that it changed?” Book asked quietly. Tyler was starting to sound like he was perfect. Book felt the first twinge of jealousy even as felt eternally grateful for all that Tyler must have done to keep Michael safe. How did one compete with a ghost?

“Yes,” agreed Michael as she leaned a little further into him. “I learned that the reason my parents were killed by klingons was due to errors made by Captain Leland from Section 31. He was also Tyler’s boss at the time. I yelled at Tyler, accusing him of deliberately hiding this information from me. Tyler hadn’t known about Leland’s involvement of course. Soon after that I was facing possible death in our attempt to capture the Red Angel and the thought of my words being the last words that I said to him…” Book felt Michael shudder slightly. 

_ "You have an entire crew dedicated to saving your life. You have me." _

“I was so scared. I was scared of the pain.I was scared of dying. He told me that the plan would work and that he was dedicated to saving my life. We became close again.” I don’t remember who reached for who first, who kissed who first. But I still feel his arms around me, rocking me back and forth until I calmed down.

“Why didn’t he come with Discovery’s crew?” Book asked solemnly. 

_ “You’re leaving?! Forever?!” _

“He said he had to stay behind. He said that he had to make sure that Control never came back. He didn’t want me to get to the future and find us still facing Control. He was going to stay behind and fight the future for me and for all of us.”

“Sounds like he wanted to protect you.”

“He felt that it was his duty to stay. Just as it was my duty to go.”

_ “I wish I could say yes.” _

Michael could feel the tears welling as the memory of her last good-bye with Ash came flooding back to her even though she hadn’t allowed herself to remember it in such a long time. She should have felt angry that he didn’t choose her...even though he did didn’t he? She was stunned when he told her he wasn’t coming and she began to walk away from him. That was when she heard a sob come from the depths of his soul. That’s when the tears fell down her face. He loved her. After everything she had said and done he loved her just as much as she loved him. They were perfectly broken together. She turned around and ran back to him, threw her arms around him, kissed him, as all their tears fell down. Their foreheads pressed together, his arms around her, his hands on her cheeks, his lips on her mouth. A part of her existed in that moment and always would. And all of this she couldn’t say to Book, the man holding her in the here and now. She loved him, deeply. But it was a different kind of love and it didn’t make her love Ash any less.

Book could read into everything that Michael was not saying as she discreetly wiped away her tears. She turned slightly to face Book and kissed him gently and lovingly. “I’m so grateful to have found you here.” Book leaned his head down to press his forehead to Michael’s but she deftly kissed Book again before that could happen. 

“Did you want to stay tonight?”

“Sure,” said Michael smiling. “I’d like that.”

Book smiled and nodded. He gave her one last hug and then got up to make sure his bedroom wasn’t a complete wreck. As he did that Michael took another sip of her tea that had long since gone cold. Absently, she reached for her neck and pulled out a silver necklace with a silver bowline at the end of it. She had had it made when she got to this place as a reminder that she would always be tethered to her past and the people she loved and who loved her. She wanted to be reminded of all that was good and what she wanted her world to look like. Ash would be glad that she had found someone to love and who made her happy in this place. She hoped he had found the same. But if she was honest that thought made her a little sad too. A part of her ached for all that she and Ash were to each other and would always be. Michael rubbed the bowline some more with her fingers. Ash was her tether, her torchbearer, and a piece of him and everything he gave to her, all his love, would be with her forever. 930 years couldn’t extinguish a flame like that.


End file.
